Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Episode 1129: Meeting MOE Freshers

Went to the first session of the Arts Faculty Seminar Series for the new academic year, after a rather boring (and useless) Introduction to Research Methods session in the Library. Two very different papers were given, which seemed to me to illustrate the opposing approaches to the presentation of research and new knowledge available to postgraduates. One can either strive for clarity, distilling the essence of concepts, or one can weave a web of knowledge so dense that only a specialist would want and/or be able to follow its connections. I suppose it'd be unfair to say that one approach is better or superior really, since the former runs the risk of oversimplifying the subject. (I did think the dismissal of the free will defence in the first paper was too pat. What about Alvin Plantinga's formulation?) Anyway, I'll probably go back to the next session in Week 7 because I'm making it a point to get involved with more academic stuff this year, being a postgraduate myself and all. Also met up with the new batch of Warwick MOE scholars for dinner in The Dirty Duck. There are so many of them! Well, relatively speaking. It seems like the numbers are slowly creeping up from my time anyway, when I was the only one in my batch. There's even a girl doing English Literature this time!